


Massage Therapy

by LSDAndKizuki



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drug Use, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mind Control, wheww this is looking like a real appealing story huh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 16:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20028583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSDAndKizuki/pseuds/LSDAndKizuki
Summary: A professor teaches his student the beauty of a good head massage.ORTo the tune of Asgore: fingers in his brain, fingers in his brain





	Massage Therapy

“You’re awake.”

“Yes. Yes. Oh God.”

“What do you feel?”

“I… I…”

“Calm down. Lewis. Do you feel it?”

“Yes, I can feel it,” Lewis cried.

“Where?”

“Skull. My skull. I can feel you stroking my skull. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Elias took his hands out. They were dripping, yellow flecks glinting in the twilight as he shook his fingers dry. Like a generator being powered down, the atmosphere of the bedroom sank from the fever back to its usual state; they felt the pressure released on their ears. Lewis’ gasp of relief gave voice to the sensation. But Elias frowned. “No. You’re supposed to feel it deeper than that.” Lewis’ face was upside down to him, his eyebrows appearing to fall when he raised them in surprise, craning his head back to look at Elias. The wide-eyed look had always suited Lewis, even in the reversed perspective, as his bottom eyelashes sprang into prominence. Elias’ chest gave a funny jolt.

“_Deeper?_” Lewis said. “Any deeper and your fingers would’ve be coming out through my nostrils.”

“Charming image.” Elias cast his eyes around for the handkerchief. Lewis produced it and flourished it at him from behind his back, now sat up and looking straight ahead at the mess they’d made. As Elias wiped his hands, Lewis whistled, half appreciation, half disgust. Elias followed his gaze. They hadn’t been particularly prudent in setting up a space in the cluttered study; boxes and books and his various esoteric possessions had been haphazardly shoved to the sides of the room. The snacks Elias had consumed, half-mad in the frenzy of the session, were strewn over the carpet, shortcake crumbs scuffed by their feet and limbs. In his black out period, Lewis had caused a few objects to fall from the windowsill several feet away, which added to the overall disarray, but more affecting than any of it was the multi-coloured Pollock painting they seemed to be sitting in. Streaks of blue and red all over the sheet they’d wisely laid down in preparation, the colour brighter where pigment had gathered in the creases. Most of it had come from the head orifices, but there had been an intriguing period where it looked like Lewis’ toes were leaking. “Anyway, we ought to stop for the day, seeing as we’ve been going at this since eleven this morning and it is now –” he checked his wristwatch, squinting through the splatter, “– seven in the evening.”

Lewis turned to face him, startled. “That long? How did we even keep it up? No wonder the room’s in such a state.”

“Charlene will sort it out,” Elias said. “And you’d be surprised. Some of the real experts can keep this up for two, three days at a time.”

Lewis gulped, unable to process such a quantity of time spent with someone else’s hands in his head without his stomach turning. He fidgeted, and Elias did his best not to stare too obviously at his delicate youthful hands. His own hands were hardly wizened, but it was still unpleasant to look down at them and see the cracking skin and callused tips. “That’d… You’d need a lot of acid.”

“More than our feeble minds could manage, yes. But now for the moment of truth.” He stood, pulling Lewis up with him, taking his wrists in his hands. “How did you find the session?”

“Great,” Lewis said, his voice oddly muted. “Really transcendent. It didn’t feel like…” He took a half second too long to be sure of the number, “eight hours, that’s for sure. Was my foot bleeding at one point?”

“In a way. You’d got yourself into a twisted position, so the blue started coming out your toes.”

“Oh, right.” Elias chewed on a smile at the way Lewis’ face was unsuccessfully closing off its horror. An unavoidable thrill of schadenfreude – his own introduction to the process had been nothing like as pleasant as this, back when he’d been an undergraduate, no older than Lewis was now. But he understood now why they had been that way. It’s a satisfying thing to feel a smaller creature squirm in your grasp. And yet, Lewis wasn’t just any old creature, and Elias wanted to know more.

“Do you remember what it felt like, then?” Elias could hear how hopeful that sounded, and he cringed internally.

Lewis closed his eyes, apparently concentrating on his recall skills. It had been too long since Elias had experienced it himself, and he’d never quite managed a full day’s effect, but he imagined it like the minutes after waking from a dream, collecting the fragments and retroactively making sense of them, filling the gaps with logical connecting points. “There was a period… It felt like my whole body was exposed to the sun, the brightest summer day of the year, just flooding me with light and heat.” Lewis bit his lip. Elias wondered if he was remembering things or making up fantasies. “And my _mother _was there. And she told me something… something I can’t remember, but… at the time it was like she told me the secret to feeling calm. Properly calm. She taught me some kind of trick to kill all the anxiety, to just slip down into pure peace.” When Lewis opened his eyes again, they were moist. A picture of despair, he muttered, “Forgotten what it was, now.”

Elias held Lewis’ shoulder. “It’ll come back. I promise you, it will. The next time you’re under stress, it will come back like muscle memory. We’ll keep doing the sessions until you have it down perfectly.”

Lewis smiled, brushed Elias’ hand away, and Elias knew he wasn’t convinced, but that didn’t matter. Once they’d done this a few more times, he’d learn. “And then what?”

“Then I woke up. And I felt where I was, where _you _were.”

“And it was definitely the skull.”

“Yes. On the inside. I could feel,” Lewis looked down at his own hands, mostly clean of the oily, paint-like substance, “Fingers touching the inside of my skull. I swear, I felt the scratch of fingernails against bone.” He laughed, low in his throat, but cut himself off. “Like… a spider crawling up the inside of the Sistine chapel.”

That was Lewis, English student through and through with a penchant for dramatic metaphors. “Your skull’s far less interesting, I’m afraid.”

Without warning Lewis stood up and walked away from Elias, leaving him bereft on the floor. Elias grunted as he heaved himself up too and made for the counter to pour them both a glass of wine. He was covered in stains, and the hours of exertion in the stuffy room had him drenched in sweat. He pulled his dirty shirt off and studiously concentrated on the wine glasses, carefully redirecting his thoughts from the image of Lewis looking at his naked torso. When he turned to face him, however, there was no suggestion that Lewis had even noticed. “What… where were your fingers, really?”

“Somewhere inside your parietal lobe.” A beat. “Hey, you asked.”

Lewis righted himself, folded his arms. He smiled, to complete the image of assurance. “No, no, it’s fine… I guess… Parietal lobe deals with sense, right? That’s why I thought you were only touching my skull?”

“Maybe. The brain is good at tricking us into thinking things are more normal than they really are. It blocks out any memories of the body’s mutilation.” His eye flicked involuntarily to his right thumb and for a second he saw it in its detached state forever ago, pumping red with gleaming white of the bone in the centre. “But these blocks can be overcome, with more sessions. You’ll know and feel exactly where my hands are at all times.”

“Right. Of course.” Elias sipped his wine. He’d had it out just a shade too long, and it had soured to his disappointment. Or perhaps it was just relativity – everything was bound to taste of decay and flatness after what he’d just experienced. Lewis hesitated, his cheery afterglow-induced nonchalance fading. “Am I… still under the influence?” he asked, his eyes darting to the side. Elias snorted, bubbling a little into his drink.

“You’re still seeing a room drenched in primary colours. You tell me if you’re ‘under the influence’.”

Lewis looked into his cup. “If I’m still high I’d rather not.”

“If that’s how you want it. Now.” Elias drew close to Lewis and placed his hands either side of his head. Lewis tensed under his fingers, but did not flinch. The temples were no longer open to invasion; the moment had passed. But they were still a little pliant, not quite sure enough of what had happened to be completely solid. He looked Lewis right into those cavernous black eyes, and Lewis held his gaze, his soft breaths just ghosting the hairs on Elias’ arm. Elias pressed his fingers firmly into the temples, and this time Lewis did wince.

“Don’t you think we’ve made enough of a mess already? Don’t want Charlene working overtime.”

“I’m not going inside again. Tell me what you remember from the thirteenth of September, 2014.”

Lewis blinked. “Uh, let me think. Would that have been a weekday? I guess I would have been at school…”

“So, nothing. You don’t remember it at all.” It was difficult for Elias to keep his hands steady as he flashed through all the hours he had spent with Lewis unravelling in his arms, convulsing with sobs as he relived that night. He’d cling to him, as if turning back into the child he was back then, as if Elias could be that child’s father by holding tighter. Never again would he feel that his arms weren’t long or strong enough to hold him together, never would his mouth tire of forming those same words over and over, _it’s alright. You’re going to be okay. You mustn’t blame yourself. _With just eight hours of massage therapy, it was gone, gone, gone.

Lewis’ eyes widened, his mouth fell open. Wasn’t he pleased? “You took something out.”

“Of course I did.”

Lewis wrenched the hands away from his head, recoiling. His foot skidded over the plastic sheet, and with a cry he fell backwards, just catching himself with his elbows. He groaned. “You said you wouldn’t do that, you _promised –”_

“I specifically remember saying ‘I can’t make any promises’. You knew there were risks.”

“Bullshit. You did this on purpose. What did you take? What happened then?”

Elias choked back his laugh, not wanting to seem sadistic. “You’ll never know.” He hadn’t thought it would work, particularly not so well, it had just been a reckless impulse, but now the full weight of it was sinking in. He blinked, surprised by the wetness of his eyes. “Please believe me. You’d only want to be rid of it again if I told you.”

Lewis still had yet to pull himself off the floor. Elias reached out to him, but his hand was pushed away. Lewis’ left foot was still bright with Prussian blue all over the sole and his face was a patchwork of primary colours, dried on the skin but still showing tracks from his eyes, nostrils and the corners of the mouth. He should have looked ridiculous, but with those black eyes glaring at him, usually so gentle and long-lashed, something twisted in Elias’ gut, stopping his giddy power high short. Had he gone too far? He’d made a psychedelic painting of him, erased the parts which he disliked, and recreated him as a work of art belonging to him. Would Lewis take that sort of thing badly? “Professor Deacon,” Lewis said. It didn’t sound like he had any idea how to continue.

“Elias.”

“I can’t do this with you again, Elias.”

Elias sighed. “I thought you might say that.” He offered a hand to pull Lewis up.

Lewis shrank away from him, and that hurt directly, that so quickly he should decide that Elias was untrustworthy. “What?” He said, staring Elias in the eye, “Are you going to try and convince me to have another session?”

“I’m not going to pressure you into anything. I understand completely if you never want to try this again. Just once is more than plenty people could even dream of.” Lewis took his hand and for a moment he relied on him once more, before he was on his feet and pulled away again, leaving Elias’ bony hand clawing at air. Something traitorous must have appeared in Elias’ eyes, because Lewis softened, backtracking,

“I mean, I _did _enjoy it. The stuff with my mum… And the colours… It’s fantastic.” The colours were beginning to fade now. The fall had sobered them both up, and the reds and blues and yellows were losing both their opacity and their viscosity, inching closer and closer to thin clear air. “But taking my memories out –”

“It’s too far. You’re right and I apologise.” Lewis gave him no platitudes, only nodded curtly. It was too little too late, he was thinking. Lewis would never let Elias’ hands into his brain again, and it was with that bitter thought that they parted, Lewis needing to get back to his parents who thought he’d spent all day in the library. He smiled in the doorway, and despite it all, Elias’ chest swelled at the sight.

“And remember…” Elias said.

“No one hears about this, yes. God’s sake, I’m not an idiot.” Lewis wrapped his scarf round his neck twice over, and – surely a remnant of the drug, or an overactive imagination – a whorl of bright vermillion seemed to poke out through the grey folds. “Bye, Prof.”

It was strange, Elias thought, as he sat in his study and listened to Charlene sweep up their mess and right the fallen ornaments, that Lewis should object to him taking that traumatic memory away from him. Of all the actions he had taken with Lewis today, perhaps throughout all the time he had known him, _that_, he thought, was his most selfless. The session was as much for himself as it was for the student. He’d been hoping he would be able to do a full day’s massage therapy with someone again for the past five years, and even from their first interactions in the college Hall, there had been an inkling of excitement in Elias, a silent hope that Lewis would be the one to say yes to the offer. It had taken a good year and a half of knowing each other, of candle-lit dinners at Victoire’s, of gradually increasing exchange of emails followed by texts, before the subject was broached.

Elias remembered the look in Lewis’ eyes when he’d given him the full explanation. His open interest in the things Elias said had been one of the first things that charmed him, the way his irises sparkled as if reacting chemically to each piece of knowledge imparted to him (Elias was a classicist, container of the most ancient of knowledge, it was no wonder the two got on so well). Watching him react as he slowly, tantalisingly revealed the details of brain massage theory, was an intoxicating experience in itself. As he recalled this, Elias was sufficiently reassured that Lewis would be back. He gave him three weeks on the outside, before he opened the topic again. He wouldn’t bring it up himself; there was no need to show how eager he was. All he had to do was promise, and stay true to his promise, not to tamper with anything else next time – simply enjoy the vicarious sensory overload.

He slept that night with the lingering vibrant colours tinting his dreams, no specific events or experiences replaying, but the emotions running through his mind and flesh, aftershocks brushing against his nerves, scooping out the last bits of pleasure from the cracks and edges of the day. Floating in between these bright and feather-light thoughts was Lewis’ soft hands, his dark eyebrows un-furrowed and perfectly peaceful, his parted lips stained blue.

*

Two weeks, and they were planning the next session over the phone. Lewis had called his landline, which was how Elias had known he meant business. They went through the motions of setting correct boundaries this time, and Elias could barely sit still in his seat as they sorted a day and time. “Let’s do it at mine this time,” Lewis said, not a trace of uncertainty in his voice. “I’ll fry us up a huge breakfast.”

Elias laid the acid tabs on the gleaming yolks of their twin fried eggs. He didn’t give his own a second thought before happily tucking in, but Lewis stared at it a little longer, watching the edges dissolve in the hot liquid. Their stomachs full to the brim with hash browns and black pudding (courtesy of Elias, knowing Lewis would not have any), they began. The going was smoother this time round, as Lewis knew what to expect and which position to start in, and Elias didn’t falter with his technique, so fresh in his mind. Lewis settled himself between Elias’ legs, the plastic sheet rustled under him, and when Elias laid his fingers on each of his temples, there was barely a reaction. His pulse quickened, and Elias spared a brief moment to wonder whether it was fear or excitement before he was rushing inside Lewis’ brain.

Brain massage, you’ll have been told, happens from the outside. Perhaps massaging wasn’t quite the word for it, though there were physical similarities between the processes. Lewis, Adam before him, Caitlyn the curious research assistant, all had knotted, agitated brains which required loosening. In all other respects, however, what Elias was doing, what he had learned from his own teachers all those decades ago, was more a kind of exploration.

Though hardly distracted, he thought of Lewis’ spider analogy as his fingers worked deeper and deeper. What struck him, and saddened him about it, was Lewis appearing to suggest that his skull was as empty as the dome of a cathedral. Physically of course this was impossible, but even more than the average brain-filled human being, Elias found Lewis’ brain a never-ending delight to pick apart. It was dense, rich in bright blue and red fluids which poured liberally out his eyes, ears and nose as Elias’ fingers pushed further and further inwards. Their eyes were on each other, Lewis’ wide and unfocussed behind the fluids, blind to the room he was sitting in but, ideally, nothing else. His hands splayed beside him on the plastic sheet; Elias eyed them and watched for telling movements. After a while, his right hand began to clutch at something, spasmodically opening and closing, but not insensibly, no, there was purpose to it – Elias didn’t think it was likely that Lewis saw a bloodstained dagger of the mind exactly, but some sort of equivalent – until it relaxed, mid-air, holding firmly onto something invisible. Whatever Lewis needed from this session, he had caught it.

And Lewis’ mind spilled out onto the scene in all its glory. Elias basked in it. He had gone silver and winterish in his fifties, but Lewis was all spring greens and yellows. His mouth opened; a gurgle of crimson spurted alarmingly onto his chin, nearly stopping Elias in his actions. A closer look told him that it wasn’t life-blood, but something poisonous, something to be expelled. Lewis would wipe his chin of it later and it would never bother him again.

As the colours in the room from Lewis’ head grew brighter, as the acid began to truly take hold, clear images formed out of the swirls. Memories and thoughts – so Elias had reached his parietal lobe. Lewis spasmed between his legs and a flower vase toppled to the floor, spilling its wet green innards. There was Lewis’ studies, the novels and poetry he genuinely marvelled at and enjoyed analysing; there was his sister and mother, whom Lewis had done nothing but praise in Elias’ presence, and there was Elias himself. There were clouds of association all around each focal point, and Elias couldn’t resist lingering on himself, exploring the waves of respect and affection, appreciating them yet hoping for something a little more concrete…

The grit in chocolate that can only be detected once you taste it. The patina of a poor photograph which you could swear looked perfect when you held your camera to the sunset. That was what lurked in Elias in Lewis’ mind on the floor, a kernel of something distasteful. Not quite fear. Fear would be manageable in a sense, requiring only reassurance on his part, or a little courage on Lewis’. This was more like logic, evidence both he and Lewis were unwilling to submit but couldn’t deny: the crease between his mother’s brows when he said he was having dinner with Professor Deacon again, the quietly sneering words of fellow students reminding of the dangers of _getting_ _too close, _newspaper clippings of previous case studies with highlighted words _power imbalance _and _inappropriate dynamic_. And through all of it, as if Lewis were shrinking in the face of the evidence, curlicues of shame twined around each moment of generosity, each personal gift, each touch held too long.

What could Elias do with this? It could not be removed, even if he wanted to – and he didn’t, he wouldn’t, he would never again – but how could he let it go by unnoticed? He redirected attention to his fingers and tapped into some old learned techniques. He pushed with his thumbs, pinched coils. He approached the doubting thoughts and gently ushered them away from his image, dispersing them back into the disparate corners of Lewis’ mind. _Not me, _he thought carefully, _you never have to worry with me. _The cloud around his figure collected closer together, thoughts of admiration strengthening as the shame was dissolved bit by bit. Elias released his held breath.

The session was over faster this time. At no point did Elias need to pull some snacks over with his feet to keep himself going. Lewis opened his eyes from the inside again, the light returning to his pupils. As before, they immediately filled with alarm and as his shoulders seized up, but this time he caught Elias’ eye before letting out a cry. They stared silent at each other, Elias continuing to move his fingers. “It still feels like the skull,” Lewis got out in a gasp.

“But?”

“There’s less space. You’re not a spider anymore. Your knuckles are brushing against something, it’s soft, it’s…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Out. Out.”

“Okay.” He withdrew. “… Was I hurting you?”

“It was starting to feel, uh, like coming down in a plane. Pressure between the ears.”

“I see.” He checked the time: three-thirty, still plenty of hours in the day. They’d get coffee down the road, certainly. Lewis still hadn’t turned to him. He was touching his lips, looking dumbly at the red on his fingertips. Elias said, “If you say never again, I understa-”

Lewis faced him, and to Elias’ mind he had never looked more serious, never more dangerous. “Absolutely not. I was so close to remembering what she said this time.” He grabbed Elias’ still-wet hands in his own clean ones. “Can we keep doing this until I do?”

He didn’t even ask him if he’d excised anything. He didn’t need to. Elias relished those hands around his for a moment, saying “of course, my dear boy. What use is therapy if you only do it once or twice?”

*

It was not until the fourth trip that Lewis was able to say truthfully that he could feel Elias’ hands where they really were. He said it with total calm, not a flinch in his face: “Your fingers are deep inside my brain. They’re quite long. A little arthritic in the index on your right. Clipped nails, except for your thumbs. You keep the ring finger and the pinky glued together, to move with more strength. Sometimes the thumbnail nicks a coil. Can I stop?”

“You’ve done spectacularly,” Elias said, taking first one hand out and wiping it indulgently on Lewis’ thick dark fringe. Lewis’ proud smile was strange upside-down but it was still a gratifying sight, and the feeling was infectious.

The sixth time, when Lewis reached out as he always did to grasp the truth, his hand found Elias’ arm. It was electrifying, and could have been the culmination of a perfect day, had Lewis’ phone not begun to ring loudly, his mother’s face looming behind blue spatter. Elias swore, stilling his movements as he waited for it to stop, praying that she would leave them alone. The phone rang twice more before it was silent, and even then Elias could not enjoy his relief and satisfaction, imagining her worry, that furrowed brow again.

Each time, Elias searched and explored Lewis’ unfolded mind. He became familiar enough with its crevices and idiosyncrasies to notice when things changed even slightly, and though he stayed true to his word about never taking anything out, he rearranged and redirected at will. He thought of it as simply giving good advice which would be heeded without needing to persuade. He had decades of life experience over Lewis, and the student already deferred to him on plenty of his problems, so what was the harm in offering solutions to his more private ones? It was not an invasion, since he was invited. He circled his own form above the others of course, careful not to interfere too much, but always assessing, always searching for new meanings and associations which would stick to him in Lewis’ mind. Specifically he looked for desire, and oftentimes found it, or things like it – perhaps not explicit desires, but powerful love which wasn’t present anywhere else in the landscape, and occasional fixations on physical features: his receding hairline, his wrists coming from cufflinked shirt sleeves, his five o’clock shadow. Nothing particularly _desirable, _perhaps, but distinguished. It was likely, Elias reasoned, that these were the seeds of want, that this was how intellectual and eccentric Lewis expressed these things.

He received his wake up call at one of their dinners. Lewis had ordered his favourite bouillabaisse at Victoire’s. There was a bottle of Sauvignon between them and Elias had just poured some into Lewis’ glass, but Lewis was not looking at him. He was on his phone; he was smiling at it; he bit his lip and snorted a laugh. “Who’s that?” Elias asked.

“Oh, just a boy from college.” Lewis made to put his phone away, obviously sensing the rudeness of having it on at all, but fascinatingly seemed unable to resist typing out another quick message and glancing for the response. “David. I’m sorry, I’ll put it away. It – a-ha-ha!” David had said something hilarious, presumably.

“A new friend?”

“Sort of. We started talking properly only a week ago. He studies Russian,” Lewis explained. “He’s helping out with the translation paper a lot. He knows so much about Tolstoy, it’s unbelievable.”

Despite having had over forty years to do so, Elias had never read _Anna Karenina_. He quickly conjured a face for David, someone tanned with a movie star smile, and imagined bloodying his teeth.

Their meals arrived. Finally distracted by something more interesting than his new friend, Lewis stowed his phone away to tuck into the first bites of fish. He hummed his approval of the dish enthusiastically, and it ought to have been endearing, but now Elias felt only irritation and a little embarrassment. They had eaten at Victoire’s nearly ten times now, and at least half of those times had been bouillabaisse for Lewis. There was no need for the dramatic display.

In-keeping with their now-regular schedule, when they returned from dinner to Elias’ the sheet was already laid out. David had not come up again in conversation, and any annoyance on Elias’ part was completely forgotten. The sessions still filled him with excitement and his mood was high as they silently took their positions. He entered, he probed, Lewis spilled, the figures rose once more, and of course, now there was someone new. Elias barely needed to look closely to know that it was this Tolstoy expert.

There was nothing too deep or poignant surrounding David’s translucent yellow figure. That it should be brighter and more energetic was to be expected, there was always a honeymoon period with new friends. What sliced into his abdomen were the pinkish electron darts bouncing off and zooming round David in a halo, the signs of attraction – latent or otherwise – that were so obvious, so _clichéd _(David’s green eyes were bright, detailed – did Elias’ eyes even have a colour in Lewis’ world?) that he was angry with both of them for assuming things would be different, when they finally appeared. _This _was want, simple and un-refutable, and Elias had been marvelling over images of his own wrist-bones. David was dark curly-haired, pale and freckly, not conventionally attractive, but magnetic where he stood. The sight of that unseeing figure filled Elias with a rage he had never encountered in this world. His hands still worked on autopilot, but a groan from Lewis snapped him to reality. He mustn’t let his own feelings colour Lewis’ now, not when his temples were wide open.

It would be simple in the moment to take David out as far as he would go – but ineffective in the long run. They knew each other; it would only cause more problems once Lewis realised that something had been taken out. And he was principled enough not to do something so drastic out of petty jealousy. Yet the anger grew and grew, and the yellow and green world began to darken. He needed to do _something. _

Floating and shining in short-term memory like a holy grail was bouillabaisse. Elias saw the pure joy in Lewis’ unfiltered eyes as the dish appeared before him, the gratitude when Elias first magnanimously covered the bill, and he heard that unabashed exclamation of pleasure accompanying the bite. He saw these things, and it was with malice that he grabbed bouillabaisse with both hands and crushed it into an unrecognisable pulp, then stomped it to dust on the plastic sheet. The dust mingled with the colours and Elias watched it dissolve entirely.

*

It will change, Elias had thought once a month for the three years they knew each other. He will come around eventually. No other student had continued to trust him this long into the therapy. No other student meant as much to him, either. Lewis’ black-out periods had grown shorter and shorter, down to just one hour, and the rest of the session was spent in perfect, focussed synchronicity, the energy flowing between them mutually, one’s eyes fixed unblinking on the other’s. In between each session, Lewis gained something new, some piece of inner strength to add to the forest he was cultivating. He no longer ate bouillabaisse, but had discovered other more sophisticated meals which he responded to with mature taste. Any stutters or incoherency of expression he had had before, which was admittedly little by most standards, had vanished completely. He was making leaps and bounds in his studies, everyone said. And it was all thanks to Elias, and Lewis could not thank him enough, though he no longer tried to in that effusive and awkward manner he used to have.

And yet still in the cloud around Elias’ figure, there was nothing, nothing but respect and interest, and now a kind of _pity. _Lewis dwelled more and more on the stories of failure Elias had imparted: the increasing difficulty of getting published, his fifteen year old writer’s block, and his lonely house, empty but for him and Charlene, who only appeared at the periphery. His fingers dug and dug, excavating a mine he now knew in his gut to be hopeless.

If there was nothing to be found, after all that, then what was the point? At the start, he may have reminded himself that it wasn’t for himself at all, that the point was Lewis’ happiness and increased self-esteem, and that it was working in that regard. But his hands seemed to age between each glance, his breaths came shorter and shorter after the hours of exertion, while Lewis continued to move with perfect ease and grace. Simply basking in that youthfulness, taking vicarious pleasure out of an untangled fresh brain was no longer enough for Elias; he required compensation. If there was nothing to be found, after all, he would have to be creative as well as explorative.

“Aren’t we eating first?”

“No. We’ve developed enough tolerance to do this on empty stomachs now. Why, would you like a little something? I may have some digestives.”

“No, no,” Lewis said. “Let’s get straight into it. You know, I’m writing more and more stuff down from it, now that I can remember? It’s all good and clear stuff, too, even after I’ve sobered up. Maybe I could make some money out of it. The best self-help book ever written.”

“You,” Elias said as he handed Lewis the tab, “are better than that by far.”

There was nothing drastically different about doing it on an empty stomach. More likely to have an impact was the double-strength dose Elias had provided this time, but Lewis didn’t need to know that. Even at the start of the session, differences were becoming apparent. The colours were brighter, and they wouldn’t stay in one place, which was irritating to the eyes. Lewis winced abruptly.

“Agh.”

“What is it?”

“It’s fine. It’s fine, just keep going.”

Elias slowed his movements. “Am I hurting you? That’s unusual. I’m not doing anything different.”

“It doesn’t feel like you are,” Lewis said. “I’m just… feeling everything even more, if that were possible.”

“I don’t want to be hurting you,” Elias said, meaning it. “We can stop and start a little later.”

“No!” Lewis’ eyes met his again, and they were surprisingly bright. Not from pain, Elias guessed, but wounded pride. Did this really mean so much to him? “I can handle it. Just keep going. It’ll pass, I’m sure of it. Just… just…” But his black-out period was already starting. His eyes glazed over, his leg twitched and a final sigh escaped him, deep and sad, ill-suited to the confidence he’d been gathering.

The black-out ought to last longer under the increased dosage, yet Elias did not intend to take any chances. Not bothering with method and rigour, he made a beeline for his figure, massaging roughly and quickly. For a moment he looked hard at it, at a loss as to what to do exactly. He knew it was possible, but he’d never tried. He’d never dared something like this; it was always easier and safer to work with the materials one was given, rather than enter in new variables.

They were connected like this, weren’t they? The barriers between his thoughts and Lewis’ were down during these sessions. He thought how he was always so careful, so restrained in his own emotions, so afraid of affecting those tender, receptive coils of tissue and electrical pulses, and the answer was so clear it was nearly an insult. He opened his own mind, unlocked the cabinet where he kept each desire, each perfectly crafted fantasy.

It began with what they already had, which was holding hands. His figure clasped in two hands one young one, marked with spilled blue ink on the thumb and bronze from many hours of sunlit exercise and reading. The hand rose to his face, brushing his cheek, and Elias felt it against his own as he stared at the scene, willing it into existence.

_Out there, Lewis was picturesque, a glorious sleeping figure and in his sleep he upended three books from the bookcase: a Euripides, a Faulkner and a grammar. A jet of acid green shot from between his toes, staining his sock._

He left lingering kisses on each finger. Elias’ figure pulled Lewis closer to him, and Lewis, a smoky and undefined thing with deep black eyes, was the one to pull his hand away from Elias’ mouth, and replace it with his lips. And now the cloud was charged with that pinkish electricity, sending sparks up and down the two of them embracing, and each image was a miniature reflection of that embrace in a thousand locations, a Roman plaza, a Parisian park bench, a king-sized hotel bed, the crisp sheets wrinkled where their bodies seemed to join into one.

It was too much, it was all spilling out of him, the room was dripping red, Elias never wanted to leave this universe of them, and there was someone crying out. Lewis’ hands were all over him, but like the first focussing of a camera lens they snapped around his wrists. He was gripping, pulling, his movements not passionate, but panicked.

_Stop stop stop_

Elias’ hands were wrenched finally from inside Lewis’ temples. The sudden shift in pressure was nauseating, and the colours were a sicklier shade than either of them were accustomed to seeing, the yellow a kind of bile scoring Elias’ palms. Neither said a word. Lewis’ head was bent forwards in his hands and a pit formed in Elias’ stomach. He shuffled away from Lewis’ back and got in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” Lewis said. “I don’t know what happened. It was like every single fear I’ve been getting over came rushing back into me all at once. I had to stop. Prof… Elias?”

Elias was already rubbing Lewis’ shoulder, the urge to console instinctive, but the sudden end of the session had disorientated him. He was still dizzy with want, overwhelmed by that drenching of colour. A part of him remained in that vibrant and lawless world; he wanted to relieve himself there and then, and only a few slivers of civilised consciousness restrained him. Lewis had yet to look up from his hands, so with no eyes to latch onto, Elias’ gaze travelled down to his crotch, and a remnant of that electricity shivered through him at what he saw. Unless he was hallucinating, he had been successful after all. He crawled closer to Lewis, drawing near to his face, hearing his breaths – quiet and shallow, controlled to avoid any hitches – and whispered his name.

Lewis looked up at him, followed his gaze and drew his knees up to his chest to cover himself. His cheeks bloomed red. “Sorry,” he said again, like a schoolboy in trouble. “I don’t know why… I shouldn’t have stopped you in the middle of it like that… I don’t know what’s wrong with me…” There was nothing that could have stopped Elias from wiping a burgeoning tear away with his thumb.

“There is nothing wrong with you.” He could barely contain his triumph. Perhaps it wasn’t the smoothest landing, but his intuition had been correct. Somewhere in a separate corner of his mind he recognised that he had done something extraordinary here, unprecedented in this field, something that could catapult him back into academic relevancy. The realisation only fuelled his giddiness. It was like madness, this overflow of joy, his whole body vibrating with anticipation. He held Lewis’ face in both hands and he tasted his mouth for the first time.

He didn’t have time to conjure the perfect adjective for the fulfilment he felt, before he was pushed firmly away. _There’s no need to be afraid, _he was about to say, a smile teasing the edge of his wetted lips, but the look in Lewis’ eyes stopped the words in his throat. “What…?” Lewis breathed. A layer of the dreamlike substance over reality was peeled off. Elias felt the sweat in his palms and knees, the rubbery scrape of the sheet beneath them. “All this time,” Lewis said, his voice ragged from his previous cries. “That. That’s what you wanted.” There was no point in affirming. It wasn’t a question. “We’re both still on cloud nine,” Lewis was muttering. “Just let it get out of control, I understand that, long as you don’t… I…” The giddiness had curdled in a moment into mounting dread. What had just seemed like the answer to life’s problems was now looking uncomfortably like a mistake. The fabric of the dream was coming apart as before Elias’ eyes Lewis unravelled it all. Staggering, he pulled himself to his feet and backed away from Elias on his knees into the bookcase. “You did something back there, didn’t you?”

“Lewis,” Elias said, rising too. There was an explanation he ought to give, but Lewis would interrupt him before it could be spoken.

“You did something to me so you could try and kiss me,” Lewis said, and pleaded, “Tell me I’m wrong.” Elias’ mouth fell open, the opportunity to explain now given freely, but no words came. He could not face the expression in Lewis’ face, so looked down at the floor, at the edge of the plastic sheet where the clean floorboards reappeared. “You _changed _me.” Lewis was not shouting yet. It could be de-escalated, still, as soon as Elias found the words. “You put these thoughts into my head, so you could –” Lewis gave a terrible shuddering cry, forcing Elias to look at him again, to find him shaking his head, as if he could rid himself of Elias that way. “Why did I ever think…? I _heard _what everyone said, why didn’t I ever suspect that you would…?” He burst into wild laughter, gripped one of the shelves behind him. “But of course I didn’t. Of fucking _course, _with you in there, in there controlling it all, I wouldn’t suspect a thing.” He gestured to his temples; they were still filmy and soft and leaking the bile-like fluid.

“You’ve got this all wrong,” Elias said. “It’s true, I can’t deny what I feel for you, but I would never take your choice away, you must believe me –”

“You promised,” and now Lewis was shouting, and something shrivelled inside Elias at the sound, “You _promised _you wouldn’t mess with my head!” Lewis hid his face again and his shoulders hitched silently as he stifled sobs with his fist. His next words were barely audible. “Did I ever even want to do this?”

Couldn’t move forwards, couldn’t run away. Elias was stuck in the defendant’s box. “I’ve given you this service freely for weeks.” He heard the begging whine in his voice but had no composure left, no pretence; he feared he would be unable to lie to Lewis in a moment. “I’ve helped you help yourself, haven’t I? You’ve become so much more since we started. You’ve enjoyed it. I swear on my life, that was all you. I’ve only ever tried to make you happy.”

Lewis sniffed, nodded and fixed his eyes to the left of Elias, on the door. “That was our mistake.”

He pulled away from the bookcase. He was leaving, and there were no words that would make him stay. A howl threatened to tear Elias’ weakened vocal chords open. He lunged for Lewis, fixated on those still-leaking temples. There was only one thing he could do, or else let Lewis run away and ruin him forever. He caught him at the door, sending them both crashing to the floor. He wasted no time, planting his fingers against the entry points, and Lewis screamed. The pain as Lewis scratched at his hands and wrists was sharper than he would have felt it sober, and the hysterical screams were almost a physical obstacle themselves, but Elias pressed in harder. The temples weren’t fully open now, taking greater effort to penetrate, but it was doable, if Lewis would just keep still, because he could fix this, he could take this whole evening out if necessary, take away all that terror and disgust – “_Don’t,_” Lewis was saying. He was fighting him with everything he had, but Elias already had the upper hand, and once the fingertips were embedded, he slowed his struggle. “_Please…” _

“Calm down. You know you need to be calm.”

“God… No… No…” The litany never quite ended. Lewis continued to cry and shake his head, even as his hands changed their course from beating and pushing to caressing. His fingers scrabbled against Elias’ shirt buttons, incapable of undoing them fast enough, and then his belt and fly. Lewis pulled at his trousers, gasping and leaning his body into Elias’, as tears ran clean tracks down his cheeks stained with dirtied rainbow colours.

“What is this?” Elias whispered. He tried to cross the bridge into Lewis’ mind once more, but found none of the usual empathic waves, only a thick wall of desire – his own haphazard fantasies now reflected back at him. He shivered at his own repulsiveness as Lewis ripped down the sleeve of his shirt to the cuff; this was wrong, all so wrong. Whatever he did now, Lewis would never forgive him the moment he took his hands away, and that knowledge took any joy out of finally being touched like this.

His first ever session returned to him. The way the boys and girls had shown him in the bathroom with their drugging and probing that he would never be happy, that no one would ever want him the way he wanted them. Elias closed his eyes in shame, and made to take his hands out.

They would not move. His hands had made it through into the brain at last, but the head had closed around them. Lewis’ hands continued to work on his body, their movements crazy with need, while he and Elias looked in horror into each other’s eyes. Even as he was brought to climax, Elias barely registered the pleasure; when Lewis brought up a slick hand to pull Elias’ head towards his own, all Elias saw through the kiss was two haunted eyes, mutely pleading with him for it to end. He strained and struggled on the inside of Lewis’ skull, his untrimmed thumbnail catching on the ridges of bone, but it was no use.

Later, or perhaps as early as then, Elias would reason that it was perhaps for the best. This way, at least, they could be together. His heart broke as tears streamed down the student’s face, and nothing but unthinking love made him whisper again and again, _it’s all right. It’s all right._

*

Charlene had been told expressly by Professor Deacon that she was not to disturb them until the boy had left. But when it had been a good two days and the study door was still shut she took matters into her own hands and knocked. It was a courtesy gesture; she had no intention of waiting for a response before opening the door.

They were both naked from the waist down, the Professor’s shirt torn to rags. At first glance she recognised their pose, and turned around with a gasp and an apology at her lips. But neither one rebuked her, spoke a word or even looked her way, and out of curiosity she timidly turned to face them again.

The boy’s hands were where you might expect a lover’s hands to be, and she averted her eyes from them on instinct. But it was Professor Deacon’s hands that brought her heart to a stop, where they seemed to be buried and what they seemed to be covered in. She only caught a split second glimpse of them before a silent scream gripped her throat and she turned her back again, shivering violently. Once she had collected her senses, she forced herself to look again. Her eyes had not deceived her. She could not say how long she stood in that doorway, working through what to do now. Her first thoughts of coming to their aid somehow, of calling an ambulance if need be, turned over like dead fish when she focussed on the embrace once more. What could anyone do in the face of that? It was like watching a couple’s marriage fall apart. What could one do, but offer a shoulder to cry on and a little help around the house?

Charlene’s eyes fell on three books toppled from the shelves. She squeezed past the couple to get to them and replaced them one by one in alphabetical order. Then she opened the window, to relieve some of the stuffiness in the air. “I’ll make us some tea,” she said, looking out at the neighbourhood. And there, she reckoned, she had done all she could. Their deep and even breaths followed her out the room until she shut the door. With such calm breaths she could fancy they were asleep in there, safe from the outside world, their dreams and terrors wrapped together into one.


End file.
